


Night and Noon

by BeingProtector



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeingProtector/pseuds/BeingProtector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in the time it takes to read, an innocuous vignette inspired by the fourth and fifth episodes of the fourth season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night and Noon

The prince had been unable to sleep for days, caught in this liminal space between crown and innocence. His forehead was forever downy; fronds of worried blond stuck to the skin above his dreamful eyes. He longed for slumber, even a nightmare: anything to grip his mind through the night, and take his mind off the impaled head across the room, the whelming ocean with imagined invaders, black on black. His pillows were soaking. He wished his attendants would not bother about him so much. His friends were so much looser…  
  
For the second night he heard the polite creak: his all-but-betrothed, ‘the Tyrell girl’, as his relatives casualled. Already he felt familiar with her silhouette, haloed by her candle—he liked this excited distance, seeing her from the comfort of his quilt. Margaery crossed the warm stone room to Tommen’s bed, and sat down with a smile that knotted his stomach sublimely. He still could not think of a secret to tell her…  
  
‘How are you?’ she asked, with her enigmatic, compassionate look. Tommen felt his own expression echo hers.  
  
‘Alright. I can’t sleep.’  
  
Margaery glanced around the room, at the heavy tapestry, the bowl of fragrant fruit by his bedside. His cat was nowhere to be seen tonight. ‘What usually makes you fall asleep?’ she asked, half wishing the animal was on the bed between them once more, so that she could stroke him through it.  
  
Tommen grimaced and looked at the window, wishing the casement open: a breeze across them both would complement their burgeoning, provide a subtle approval… ‘Knowing what the day will bring,’ he said, absent-mindedly.  
  
Margaery had a way of bringing his gaze back to her, even after one night. His eyes drifted back to hers as she said, ‘Perhaps we can see each other tomorrow. In the grounds. May I meet you there?’  
  
Tommen nodded, nervous but inwardly thrilled like the night before.  
  
‘There,’ said Maragery. ‘Now you know what tomorrow will bring.’  
  
They both knew that she would lean into him again, kiss him—somewhere. Last night it had been his glistening forehead, hot from murderous events, the swirl of history happening _now_. This time Maragery bent down and gently kissed his cheek, paused before his face to examine his response (those boyish flickers of delight and doubt), then, still holding the burning candle, rose again with a final smile and departed.  
  
Tommen did not know how she had got past the guards, recently tripled at his mother’s request. It was one of many aspects of their emergent relationship that he almost dared not question. The secrets they kept from one another were somehow shared between them…

* * *

In the morning the future king awoke and his first thoughts were of Margaery Tyrell. Her visitation in the night lingered in the room as he pulled on a linen shirt and nodded at the woman who always attended to him at this hour. His bed was made before he was fully dressed. He half shrugged to himself: at least he would not have to bother himself.  
  
He went to the long tall windows and looked down at the brilliant blue sea, parented by the bright sun, the rapturous sky, distant clouds. The woman flapped fabric behind him, clinked a glass. Attended as he was every moment of the day, how could he escape to the lush green secret of the grounds? There was always someone about: an inscrutable guard; his exacting mother, pulling him by the heartstrings. He wanted a different tune, another play…  
  
He snapped out of his reverie and returned to the gloom of hallways and banquet tables, eating breakfast with his grandfather and talking of his imminent responsibilities. After an hour he was free again, and wandered surrepticiously toward the vibrant gardens. Was she there already, waiting, hidden by flowers? He wondered what his responsibilities to _her_ would be. They would be married, would they not? The idea had congealed in his hopeful mind, dusted with the simplicity of youth. The politics of the adult world had tripped up: they might be happy together, unlike his mother and father, the old king, Robert Baratheon, who looked so different from his reflection…  
  
He answered calls, he gave reasons. Somehow he managed to slip away, began running, laughed a little, ducked and dashed and found himself face to face with the Ty— with Margaery. There she was, standing in blue as the sky, silken lace silver like the clouds, a splash of yellow flower mirroring the eye of heaven. She was radiant like the day…  
  
Tommen walked up to her with a largening smile, lips parting with a flash of white. High shrubs surrounded them on three sides, an ornate bench sat waiting for them, more flowers spilling up behind. The earth seemed to be disgorging beauty, a surplus of aromas and bloom.  
  
They sat together in the sun, and smiled, and glanced, and laughed, and yesterday and tomorrow slipped away: the past was a bad dream; the future this moment now.


End file.
